Potty all the time

Good gracious, I really thought I had experienced most parenting obstacles...and then I started potty training a boy.

Really, he started training himself.  We had been going to the potty before baths and just sitting on it a little bit here and there until one day, Caleb decided he DID NOT want to wear diapers and WANTED to "doe in da pobby, mama."  

This was one week before preschool started, mind you.  *Sigh*  And so we began.

Now, I should have started him at the beginning of the summer.  That's what I said I was going to do.  That's what I aimed to do.  But people, I was so tired,  And just letting him wear diapers was so darn easy.  

But whatever, so we started.  

Now, I have to tell you - as much as I moan and groan, it has really been easier than what I expected.  I potty train by stripping them naked at home and then gradually adding clothes back on.  Little did I know that this would be the boy's wheel house and this whole no-clothes thing would be his new favorite past time.  So we had gotten well past the point of figuring out when we had to go and he still refused to put clothes back on.

I am still apologizing for the early anatomy lesson to most of my friends who brought their little girls to my house to play.  Oh don't mind Caleb being naked...sorry!  Sorry, Mr. electrician!  We're potty training...  So sorry Mr. UPS man about my son standing at the door, smashed up against the glass...naked...

I swear, I should have made a yard sign.  

Him running out behind me to get Elizabeth from the bus...naked as a jay bird and the bus driver just laughing and waving.  I really do have a million of these.

The solution to my little pint-sized David?  Super hero underpants.  Once he saw those bad boys, he was over being naked.  And ran around in just his underwear for a while - which I'm not really sure was any better.

Besides the streaking, the hardest thing for me to get over was the cleanliness issue of boys and bathrooms.  And I hear this will not improve.  I've heard it from lots of people.  Thanks a lot for building me up, people. 

However, I was not prepared to live in a Clorox commercial 24/7.  

Like the time he came downstairs to tell me that he pee-peed in the potty...carrying the potty with him.  (Slosh, slosh, slosh)

Or when he called for me from the stairs that he had poo-poo'd.  And he was sitting (yes naked) on the stairs.  

(My poor stairs...)

But the story to top it all off came when Scott was out of town for a weekend.  I was in full survival mode and was just trying to keep the house from falling over.  Caleb was still naked most of the time and all three kids were just pills from the adjustment of school starting.  Well there was this leaf in the hallway that I had assumed the dogs brought in and I kept stepping over it and walking around it.  

Until one time, I accidentally stepped on it.  And it wasn't a leaf.  

It was a little squashed poopie. 

WHO WANTS TO COME FOR DINNER??!!

Happy weekend, sweet friends!

Making Do on a Monday Afternoon

I'm doing Beth Moore's Revelation study with a group of wonderful women and she has challenged us to pray for God to reveal Himself to us in our everyday lives.  This simple prayer has literally exploded my world, making even the smallest and simplest things wonderful.  

Take this afternoon, for instance.

I needed to go to the grocery store.  

I told Scott that very thing last night as I surveyed the contents of the fridge and planned on possibly sneaking in a trip after my morning Bible study.  However, life had different plans.  Life being my children.

Caleb woke up seven shades of crabby after a long weekend of interrupted naps and Rachel was ready to go home and relax after I picked them up from the childcare.  As I called Scott on my way home, I told him I would just skip the store and figure out dinner from what we had.  We would "make do."

My crew had a lazy afternoon dozing and playing and watching cartoons and I got my chores and most of my to-do list done. (Except for the bathrooms...why do I always put those off??)  As I started to prepare dinner, they climbed up to the island and ate snacks as they watched me chop and dump ingredients into my green, cast iron soup pot.  

It suddenly dawned on me what a change our family had been through in the past five years and what a difference "making do with what we had" meant now.  In my pot began the most fragrant soup.  Homemade stock, onion, garlic, chopped leftover bacon, italian sausage and grilled chicken...chopped mushrooms and a bunch of kale I needed to either use or lose...  Can't you smell it?  Oh, it is filling up my house with love and yumminess as I type this.

It wasn't too long ago that "making do" would have involved a can of tuna, a package of Ramen noodles and a can of diced pineapple.  (Duh, you make a mock tuna noodle and have pineapple for dessert...HA!)  

I am bowled over with God's provisions.  Healthy kids, a hard-working and loving husband, a home to care for, the skill of cooking that I very honestly haven't always had...I am so thankful for these things today.  

This is how God reveals Himself to me.  Almost as if to say, "Hey...consider this...pretty cool right?"

Thank you for letting me share.  I've missed writing so much and am going to try my best to get back into a routine - even if just to write little snip-its here and there.  I hope you are "making do" today!

Take care, dear friends!